Dell Precision M3800 Owner's Review

1TB drive probably isn't available because there's no 1TB drive that's only 5mm thick like the 500GB drive. That's thinner than most SSDs, FYI (they're usually 7mm, and regular drives are 9.5mm) so if you'll be installing an aftermarket model you may have to remove the flash cars from the enclosure and install it bare for it to fit. And a regular spinning drive would never fit.

EDIT: I was wrong about the 5mm. That pertains to the Inspiron 14 7000 I was researching for my sister at the same time and I got the specs confused in my head. Not sure whether the M3800 is 7mm or 9.5, but it's definitely more than 5. Sorry about that!

 

I am interested in this notebook, I'll be coming from a M6400.. My biggest regret is I'll be losing firewire, esata (can get an adapter cable for this), and numpad.. But portability and battery life would be great!

Questions:

-Can you provide a WEI rating?

-How far back does the lid rotate? tablet mode?

 

Anybody received the M3800 yet?

 

XPS15 comes with 1TB HDD, it's the same chassis, so it's only a Dell choice.
Moreover Hybrid HDD could be useful only if it's used for OS, also it's no big deal.

 

Just pulled the trigger on one yesterday:

Dell Precision M3800 CTO Base
16GB (2x8GB) 1600MHz DDR3L
Keyboard US
Nvidia Quadro K1100M
Intel WIDI Driver
256GB Solid State Drive Full Mini Card
Windows 8.1 Pro 64-bit English
Intel Dual Band Wireless-AC 7260 + Bluetooth 4.0
Dell Limited Hardware Warranty Plus Service Extended Year(s)
Accidental Damage Service, 3 Year
Keyboard palmrest
Non-Canada Orders only
Dell 61 WHr 6-Cell Lithium-Ion Battery
4th Generation Intel Core i7-4702HQ Processor (6M Cache, up to 3.20 GHz)
No Windows XP Mode
Dell Adapter - USB 3 to Ethernet
2nd 2.5 inch 500GB Solid State Hybrid Drive
15.6 inch LED Backlit Touch Display with Truelife and QHD+ resolution (3200 x 1800) with Camera
Microsoft Office Trial, MUI, OptiPlex, Precision, Latitude
Dell Digital Delivery Cirrus Client
No Security Software
130W AC Adapter??Dell Adapter - USB 2 to Ethernet (PXE)
Windows 8.1 USB OS Recovery(English)
Dell M3800 System Badge
Dell Backup and Recovery Basic 1.6

...500GB HD will be swapped out for a second SSD. The drive I plan to swap in is 7mm, so may take a bit of modifying of the drive.

Estimated Delivery Date: 12/16/2013

For those with Premier ordering access, Win 7 (downgrade from Win 8.1 license) and Win 8.1 are the options.

For those without Premier ordering access, has anyone tried getting configurations not on the public web site by calling sales?

I've posted clock speeds from the M3800. I couldn't find any mentions of GPU-Z or "gpu clock" using the search function in the XPS 15 owner's thread, and posted a request.

Those may or may not be more expensive than pre-configured ones, depending on the particular model and the discount levels applying to your account. In my experience, with my particular employer's discount, they're generally on par with some models higher/lower.

Sandforce controller problems are so 2011. Newer firmware are quite solid, even on enthusiast brands like OCZ and Corsair, and the Intel Sandforce firmware (on the 520 and 330, and new 335/525/530) have been rock solid since day 1.

As for high storage requirements, the 960gb Crucial m500 is under $500 and 1TB Samsung 840 EVO a little over; 50c/GB is not too bad. Both are slower drives as SSDs go but still incredibly fast compared to spinny disks.

Right now, I'd say avoid OCZ, but beyond that pretty much everyone's SSDs should be reliable. Avoid the earliest firmware on any brand-new drive model and you should be fine.

Mine is 3 years NBD, ProSupport + ADP/Completecare. They didn't offer return to depot; I debated dropping ProSupport (basically $100 for shorter wait times and US-based agents), and I always get ADP as I travel a LOT with my system and have a young kid... my present E6430 will be the first machine in 10 years that didn't end up with some sort of damage in its lifetime.

Yeah, public-site models are 1 year base warranty. Can buy up to 5 years, same as every other business machine. Oddly, the Premier listing defaults to 5 years; I had to downgrade to 3 on the one I ordered.

 

Strange. Are you in the US? Do you have a business account with Dell? If so, then you probably already have a sales team assigned to your account. You need to discuss it with your sales team, perhaps the team leader.

If you do not have a rep assigned then just call Dell sales again and play the CSR roulette. Make sure to start with the second (dual-drive) configuration and ask to upgrade the mSATA.

Nice theory, but I don't think this is the case. Since a 1TB drive fits in the New XPS 15, it should fit in the m3800 too.

Yes, I am getting a non-standard configuration and our company doesn't have a Premier account.

 

Got it. Thanks for the confirmation.

 

Man I hate how much wasted space they have around the keyboard. They could have put in upward-facing speakers and dedicated home/end/pg up/pg down keys.This laptop seems pretty great but I can't live without those keys. Oh well.

 

OK, thanks.

 

Beats forcing a numeric keypad on there! But yes, I'm not sure why they didn't carry over the generally-very-good Latitude layout over to this one.